Agenda item

[To receive information on how the Council is helping to support businesses at local ward level and how this links with the wider work relating to the Wolverhampton Pound]. 

[Report is marked: To Follow].

The Head of Enterprise delivered a presentation on “Business Support”, a copy of which is attached to the signed minutes. The Head of Enterprise explained that work within business support was in a transitional phase due to European Union (EU) funding support coming to an end. This funding will be replaced by the United Kingdom (UK) Shared Prosperity program, the Head of Enterprise stressed however that it is a lower level of funding than the previous EU funded program but has greater flexibility and freedom in its application. The mission of the Council was set out in reference to business support, which was “to enable (facilitate) a diverse and thriving local economy that delivers real benefits for the people of Wolverhampton” and the objectives within that mission.
 
The Head of Enterprise explained that the Council was currently at the Pre-Start stage within its work on this plan alongside its partners in the Voluntary Charity Sector (VCS) and IGNITE. Since April 2022, 32 new businesses have been supported to set up in the city. For Micro and Small Medium Enterprise (SME) businesses, support from the Council was delivered by the enterprise service, the Head of Enterprise explained that this was funded by the EU scheme which came with specific criteria requirements attached; through this scheme 216 SME businesses were supported. This supported business, created new jobs, secured existing employment, and brought increased salaries to the City of Wolverhampton’s economy. The business support program initiated by The City of Wolverhampton Council was part of a wider business support ecosystem and the Head of Enterprise expanded upon this within the presentation: business support provision was spread across a variety of public, private and third sectors as well as multiple local, regional, and central government departments and non-departmental bodies.

The Head of Enterprise then set out key considerations for the new business support model in line with the UK Shared Prosperity Program. Which were as follows:

·       Need to ensure the local and regional businesses support can respond to the economic and cost of living challenges

·       To ensure the local and regional programmes meets the needs of businesses in the city, that we build our intelligence quickly and effectively

·       Need to review structure of service and the posts in the council and those currently in Local Enterprise Partnership and Growth Hubs, to identify any Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) TUPE arrangements

·       That Wolverhampton has a clear engagement approach in place and we go further in our engagement with local businesses

·       That we ensure the model reflects the needs of the city’s diverse city business base

·       The city has a model in place, ready to deliver by 31 March 2023

The Chair thanked the Head of Enterprise for their presentation and sought to clarify that they had requested a report on supporting businesses at ward level, whereas the report delivered by the Head of Enterprise was city wide. The Chair requested further information in the future based upon ward level data. The Head of Enterprise confirmed they would ensure this information would be looked into and brought back at a later date.

A Councillor stated that they were not aware of any foreign investment and business start-up enquiries that had taken place within the City of Wolverhampton for quite a long time and asked if any work was taking place by the Council and its partners to liaise with the international business community with the aim of attracting their business to the City of Wolverhampton.

The Head of Enterprise replied confirming the City of Wolverhampton Council does have work in this area which is led by the Head of City Investment and invited him to expand on this work to answer the councillors query.

The Head of City Investment cited examples of recent trips to India as part of ongoing work within the international business community, as well as the Department for International Trade and explained that attracting Foreign Direct Investment was a major part of City Investments work. He also explained that when Foreign Direct Investment was secured, they tasked teams which worked with those financiers and businesses throughout the process and help maintain the investment.

The Councillor then responded to this answer requesting a number of how many foreign owned businesses had been set up in the city within the last 12 months. The Head of City Investment responded saying that they would be able to get the figures on this from the last 5 years.

A Councillor praised the Wolves at Work scheme and asked if the city was taking the new recruits from this scheme into employment. The Head of Enterprise answered that many recipients of this scheme were indeed finding employment in the local authority area.

The Councillor replied to clarify if new recruits from the scheme were getting jobs in the area. The Head of Enterprise confirmed if they were Wolverhampton Postcode residents, then they were.

A Panel Member expressed praise on the work of the Council and was impressed with the presentation, citing the British business bankers awarding Wolverhampton the top local authority in the region in regards to start up loans.

The Head of Enterprise thanked the Member and also cited this work was done during the difficult period of the covid pandemic.

A Councillor discussed the differences each ward had in terms of the business make up and reiterated agreement in requesting ward specific data, citing the need for the Council to be able to target its resources more effectively in aiding local businesses. The Councillor asked how serious the Council was about reaching out to and working with local businesses after giving an example of her own work in her ward promoting businesses. She asked did the Council know the financial capacity of the City of Wolverhampton’s businesses. The Councillor also raised diversity within the business community and stated that she would like to see the diversity of business leaders/entrepreneurs represented in the Council to engage with this particular piece of Council work.

The Director of Regeneration began by explaining that out of the 10,000 currently existing businesses, the vast majority of the makeup of businesses in the City of Wolverhampton were micro and SME, thus making it difficult to reach every single business. The Director of Regeneration set out the 4 key objectives that the Council applies in working with business. These were:

1. Having the data

2. Finding out who wants to bring business to the City of Wolverhampton and who wants to invest (he cited the previous comments made by the Head of Enterprise)

3. Finding out where we need to best focus our resources, so that we also reach diverse communities

4. How we link all of this into a wider regional level.  The Director of Regeneration raised that it was necessary to acknowledge the limitations of what the Council could do.

A Panel Member raised the role Scrutiny could play in helping the Council work on further promoting connections to international business. The Councillor explained that the previous EU backed grant was heavily legislated. This meant it could apply broadly across all EU member states. With the change to the United Kingdom Shared Prosperity grant, the scope and decision making the Council had over the use of the money from central government was wider and the Council needed to make sure it effectively used the funding.

A Councillor praised the IGNITE space but commented that the 236 members information needed to be investigated, to ensure that it is businesses, not visitors and asked to see a breakdown of that information. The Councillor also suggested larger businesses that use the space contribute more based off a threshold of income, to enable the Council to keep the space open. The Councillor also stressed the need for the Council to do more shout outs via communications to promote when new businesses have been launched and when awards have been won.

The Head of Enterprise thanked the Councillor for her comments and then informed the Panel that the Council was due that weekend to have a “Small Business Saturday”, where businesses could tweet the Council and be retweeted to aid in their promotion. Further communicative efforts were then raised and cited as examples where the Council promoted businesses.

A member of the Panel explained that they had picked up on a few points from the report, in particular the Wolves at Work program and asked if the council had breakdowns of the numbers of jobs filled and as well the makeup of the skill set of these individuals filling the jobs after they had been through the program.

The Head of Enterprise agreed this was a crucial piece of information that the Council had to gather and explained that they would need to look into the criteria of the information gathered on skill sets and hoped to be able to get that data for the Panel in the future.

A Councillor reiterated another Panel Members comments in reference to contributions to the IGNITE program from larger earning companies, although they advised this be investigated once the period of economic downturn was over. The Councillor linked the Council’s employment programs towards contributing to businesses local workforce, citing Wolves at Work and other Council delivered services. The Councillor then expanded on the previous Councillor’s comments about improving skills and suggested that the Council could make grants available for apprenticeships to further improve its employment services.

The Chair thanked the Councillors for their comments and thanked the Head of Enterprise for her report.